PACIFIC COLLEGIATE SWIM & DIVE CONFERENCE (PCSC) – MEN AND WOMEN
- Dates: Wednesday-Saturday, February 12-15th
- Location: East Los Angeles College, Monterey Park, California
- Defending Champions: Concordia men (1x); Cal State East Bay women (1x)
- Championship Central
- Results
Courtesy: Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — The 2020 PCSC Championships kicked off on Wednesday at East LA College with a pair of diving events, the 1,000-meter freestyle and four relays.
The finals opened with the men’s and women’s 1-meter diving events. After recording the top three scores in the prelims, Azusa Pacific nearly repeated the feat in the finals as Amy Crayne captured the title with a new meet-record score of 290.35 and teammate Melia Stout placed second with 274.9 points. Pepperdine’s Paulina Holmberg prevented the Cougars from claiming a podium sweep as she nipping the Waves’ McKenna Webster for third by just 3.4 points.
On the men’s 1-meter board, the five competitors set the tone in the prelims and claimed the same spots in the final. UC Santa Cruz’s Ethan Johnson led the way, taking his second straight 1-meter title. Johnson swept the diving events in 2019 and is already on his way to repeating that feat this week. Fresno Pacific’s Cole Hunter took second, while Concordia’s Max Wickens finished third. The Slugs’ Marshall Hintze and Biola’s Westin Dawe rounded out the results in fourth and fifth, respectively.
The distance specialists were the first swimmers to take to the water at the meet in the 1,000 freestyle. Azusa claimed its second victory of the day as Hannah Frey narrowly out-touched Cal State East Bay’s Leah Robinson to claim the title in 10:15.08. Robinson took second just over three-tenths of a second behind Robinson and was joined by teammate Peyton Wayment (10:20.34) on the podium in third. Biola’s Kellynn Hayes finished fourth and Loyola Marymount’s Lanna Kozlowski claimed the Lions first points of the meet to round out the top five.
The men’s race finished in a dead heat as nothing separated UCSC’s Sam Smith and Biola’s Gabe Weber who tied for first in 9:29.47. Concordia’s Taylor Steffen finished third (9:39.13) and the Banana Slugs swept the next five places as Aaron Wood, Matt Holt, Gavin Hollis, Giovanni Wenzler and Jacob Roa claimed fourth through eighth, respectively.
The 200 medley relays were next and saw Fresno Pacific take both the men’s and women’s titles. On the women’s side, Ioanna Palla, Olga Tovstogan, Genesis Navarrette and Arianne Kooijinga touched in 1:43.97 ahead of Pepperdine’s Jasmine Williams, Emily Morton, Sarah Hamilton and Amy Griffin (1:45.01). Alaska-Fairbanks’ team of Erika Kakazu, Kaia Norbye, Oda Bygdnes and Whitney McArthur finished just 0.13 seconds back of the Waves to claim the other podium spot in third. Lauren Ostrander, Tori Padilla, Victoria Zukeran and Allie Klinger nearly helped East Bay nip third after finishing less than two-tenths of a second behind the Nanooks in fourth.
Iskender Baslakov, Dmitry Belolipetskiy, Kirill Baron and Oleksandr Ivakin powered the Sunbirds to the men’s 200 medley relay victory, missing the meet record by just over a second with their time of 1:28.82. UCSC (Akira Morita, Max Manwaring Mueller, Victor Sowa, Paul Ogle-Sporer) and Biola (Clayton Owens, Colin Reeve, Raymond Kam, Andrew Benson) made the race for second-place interesting as the Slugs (1:34.58) finished just a tenth of a second ahead of the Eagles (1:34.68) to grab the runner-up finish.
The 800 free relay rounded out Day 1 of championships as the Waves (Sammie Slater, Nohea Lileikis, Morton, Paige Brackett) claimed their first victory of the meet in 7:33.84. The Pioneers were the runners up as Serene Augustain, Kelee Shimizu, Maddie Wittkowske and Isabel Rishwain touched in 7:34.63, while Biola’s Kolya Vos, Liza Parahnevich, Kasidee Pascoe and Hayes posted a time of 7:35.7 to round out the podium spots.
The men wrapped things up on Wednesday with Biola’s Patrick Waggoner, Alex Ness, Tanner Smith and Jonas Huckabay claiming the title in the 800 free relay with a time of 6:47.17. Concordia (Austin Barton, Kobe Gall, Albe Cortes, Kyle Benjamin) took second in 6:56.22, while UCSC (Sam Smith, Morita, Victor Sowa, Ogle-Sporer) snagged third place in 6:59.2.
Day 2 of the championship meet will feature four swimming events each for the men and women, with the divers taking a day off ahead of Friday’s 3-meter prelims and finals. Teams will compete in the 500 freestyle, 200 IM, 50 free and 200 free relay on Thursday.
Prelims are set to begin at 9:30 a.m. and finals will start at approximately 4:35 p.m. at East LA College in Monterey Park. For more information about the meet, click here. You can find individual team recaps of Day 1 below.